DEL.ICIO.USCOLLEGE FOOTBALL: GEORGIA TECH
Tech fails to challenge North Carolina
Tar Heels take advantage of turnovers as Yellow Jackets struggle on offense, kicking game
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Chapel Hill, N.C. — The Paul Johnson regime at Georgia Tech produced yet another first Saturday: its first rotten egg.
On a splendid sunny afternoon that might have left the Jackets with the ACC’s best record, Tech rushed for 326 yards while holding North Carolina scoreless for over 42 minutes. And still, Tech was pounded 28-7 and strangely, never really challenged.
Johnny Crawford/jcrawford@ajc.com
Tech quarterback Josh Nesbitt tries to evade the tackle of North Carolina Jordan Hemby. Nesbitt was 10-for-22 for 97 yards and one interception, along with 15 carries for 62 yards. in the loss.
“They just came ready to play,” Tech quarterback Josh Nesbitt said, “and we just basically punched the clock.”
What had been a 7-0 Carolina game much of the afternoon pivoted on a pair of Tech fumbles early in the fourth quarter: the first a fumbled punt by Roddy Jones on his own 30 and then a fumble by reserve quarterback Jaybo Shaw on his own 32.
The Tar Heels recovered both, converted a pair of touchdowns within three minutes and eight seconds and the only remaining drama was whether the Jackets would be shut out. A Jonathan Dwyer 85-yard sprint — the longest touchdown anyone has ever scored against UNC — prevented that but it remained the team’s only offensive moment.
“We did not make enough plays,” said Johnson, who shuffled his quarterbacks in the second half in a failed attempt to spark the offense. “We got destroyed in the kicking game, from a field-position standpoint, to fumbling the punt. That was a real momentum-turner there.”
Following a 6-1 start, the Jackets (7-3) have lost two of their last three and should expect to drop out of the BCS rankings today from their current No. 20 spot. Moreover, when the team had to complete the conference schedule with two final wins for a real chance at a shot at the conference title, Tech instead dropped to 4-3 in the ACC’s Coastal Division, with all three losses within the division.
But don’t ask Johnson about a bungled title opportunity.
“You guys created all that,” he told reporters afterward. “We got a very, very young field goal team that from week to the next, is very fragile. And we didn’t make enough plays to win the game.”
No. 19 North Carolina (7-2, 3-2) won for the fifth time in six weeks and has defeated Tech for just the second time in 11 tries. A crowd of 59,000 saw it at Kenan Stadium.
“There was a lot of anxiety among the coaching staff and players,” UNC coach Butch Davis said about going against Tech’s option offense. “Did we prepare enough?”
Perhaps. Playing behind a make-shift front line that at times was without four starters, the Jackets continually moved the ball but not where it counted. While out-gaining Carolina 423 yards to 314, Tech only crossed the UNC 20-yard line once, that on Dwyer’s score that helped him to a 157-yard day, his seventh 100-yard game in his last nine outings.
But penalties or Carolina’s defense snuffed out Tech’s most promising long drives and when Johnson twice had to settle for field goals in the second quarter, kicker Scott Blair missed both — from 40 and 52 yards — wide to the right.
Tech had hoped to force Carolina into a passing game, where the rush might rattle quarterback Cameron Sexton. But granted a 7-0 lead after one possession, UNC tailbacks Shaun Draughn and Ryan Houston made the pass moot, rumbled for a combined 164 yards.
“We thought we could make something happen,” Tech defensive end Michael Johnson said of the Tar Heels’ air attack. “But we screwed up on the first drive and let them score. That’s three games in a row, we let them score on the opening drive.”
So instead of waiting for the ACC to come to them, the Jackets face an 11-day wait until their last conference game with Miami. Until then, Johnson had just two words of advice: “Move on.”
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